Tag: Sink

Only two weeks ago, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was preparing to host foreign investors at a lavish event being described as "Davos in the desert." Here, MBS -- as he is colloquially known -- would show off his Vision 2030 plan for the kingdom and present to the world his future for a modern Saudi Arabia and charm international investors to back his plans. Bin Salman's conference, a staged event designed to present a transformed Saudi Arabia, is looking likely to be a significantly less impressive affair, as investors and business leaders are dropping out in horror at the events of the past week. Has bin Salman badly misjudged the extent to which the world is willing to isolate him? It took the global business community confronting bin Salman at Davos early the following year for the message to hit home that locking up prominent businessmen is not the way most high-profile investors choose to work. Do they copy the playbook of Russian President Vladimir Putin and continue to flatly deny all allegations, or do they engage with and try to clean up this mess and take responsibility for what Turkey claims is a brutal murder? The problem for Saudi Arabia is that Turkey claims that it does hold such evidence -- and is gleefully sharing it with its allies. His plan to borrow against Saudi Arabia's enormous national wealth, open its economy and drag his nation into the 21st century is withering before his eyes. While he's currently Crown Prince and in line to inherit the Kingdom, Saudi politics can be brutal. There are lots of other royals in Riyadh and it's not hard to imagine one or two of them sidling up to King Salman and telling him that his son is out of control.